Revisiting History: The Unlikely Campaign to Vilify Winston Churchill

[Cameroni]

23 hours ago, placeholder said:

As the English language article I cited explains, that first bombing, which you characterized as an assault on civilians, was actually meant for ships of the German navy. And not only didn't the English bomb the city,  which they purposely kept clear of, but they failed to accomplish their mission.  In fact, it was a debacle for them. And you repeatedly claimed that 435 civilians died in that first bombing.  No carpet bombing or anything like it occurred then and there's no evidence that any civilians at all died.

 

I actually EXPLICITY said the British were not carpet bombing, but accidentally killed civilians in Wilhelmshaven. I mention Wilhelmshaven to illustrate that the British bombed Germany first, ie before Germany bombed Britain. 435 civilians did die in Wilhelmshaven due to British bombing raids.

 

 

[Cameroni]

23 hours ago, placeholder said:

And you previously had claimed that the UK was the first to deliberately target civilians in Europe. Now we know that at least as early as 1937, the germans did that. And on a massive scale against the Poles in 1939.

As for the British bombing of germany in may...

"While it was acknowledged bombing Germany would cause civilian casualties, the British government renounced deliberate bombing of civilian property, outside combat zones, as a military tactic.^[66] The British changed their policy on 15 May 1940, one day after the German bombing of Rotterdam, when the RAF was given permission to attack targets in the Ruhr Area, including oil plants and other civilian industrial targets which aided the German war effort, such as blast furnaces that at night were self-illuminating. The first RAF raid on the interior of Germany took place on the night of 15/16 May 1940 while the Battle of France was still continuing.^[67"

^{https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_bombing_during_World_War_II#:~:text=The first RAF raid on,of France was still continuing.}

 

As for Rotterdam,

In 1940, Rotterdam was subjected to heavy aerial bombardment by the Luftwaffe during the German invasion of the Netherlands during the Second World War. The objective was to support the German troops fighting in the city, break Dutch resistance and force the Dutch army to surrender. Bombing began at the outset of hostilities on 10 May and culminated with the destruction of the entire historic city centre on 14 May,^[2] an event sometimes referred to as the Rotterdam Blitz. According to an official list published in 2022, at least 1,150 people were killed, with 711 deaths in the 14 May bombing alone,^[2] and 85,000 more were left homeless.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_bombing_of_Rotterdam

 

As you very well know Guernica was a highly limited experimental operation. It was in no way a targeted, systematic carpet bombing campaign to which the Luftwaffe allocated all its resources, like the RAF did with bombing German civilians after May 1940.

 

Rotterdam was of course a mere pretext. It is a mendacious lie to suggest the British used Strategic bombing as retribution for Rotterdam, which was an accidental bombing of a butter factory anyway in the course of a major military operation.

 

The real reason why the British switched to bombing civilians was not Rotterdam, but rather the fact that the RAF suffered unsustainable losses in daylight raids on military targets. That coupled with Britain's inability to fight back with her army in any meaningful way.

 

The figures provided for the Rotterdam bombing are false, 814 civilians died in the Rotterdam bombing. The raid that caused these deaths was meant to be aborted, but a technical problem led to the raid going ahead despite the cancellation orders.

 

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombardierung_von_Rotterdam_1940

 

 

[Cameroni]

23 hours ago, placeholder said:

I'm not going to go into detail about your characterization of whose lands these really were. They were ethnically mixed. But the Germans did seize Danzig from the Poles in 1793, 

 

A smart move on your part, because almost all the many many areas the Poles annexed after 1918 were historically German for centuries.

 

Danzig was originally a Viking settlement, Scandinavian and Prus made up the ethnic  origin of this original settlement. But it is true that these lands came under the dominion of a Polish King eventually in the 10th to 12th century. In the 13th century the Danes conquered Danzig. This led to the city coming under the laws of Luebeck, Germany.

 

Then the Brandenburger Konrad the 1st conquered Danzig. The the city fell to the Poles again however they fought with the Brandenburgers and then the Poles called the Deutsche Orden (!) to help them against the Brandenburgers. Because the Poles tried to stiff the Teutonic Order and failed to pay what they agreed to pay the Teutonic Knights occupied Danzig.

 

The Teutonic Knights and the Poles settled their dispute with a treaty at Kalish in 1343. There upon an era of 66 years of peace followed. That was when the Hanseatic alliance made Danzig into what it became.

 

After the Battle of Tannenberg when the Teutonic Order fell, the city of Danzig elected to rejoin Poland. However, with the peace of Thorn the Teutonic Knights again regained control of Danzig.

 

In 1440 Danzig joined the Prussian League. With the second peace of Thorn Danzig became part of the Kingdom of Prussia for some time. However, Poland was still involved in the administration which led to a dispute upon which Danzig elected to go against the Poles.

 

Danzig was the only city with a Polish population that did not join the Union of Lublin and when Stephan Bathory became King of Poland the city of Danzig refused to recognise him and instead declared for the emperor Maximilian II of Austria.

 

Danzig was then in its golden period but a war between Sweden and Poland led to its decline

 

Sweden occupied Danzig. It was not the Poles but the Danes and the Dutch which liberated Danzig.

 

In the conflict between Catholics and Lutherans Danzig was then occupied by the Russians and Saxons. Prussian then annexed Danzig in the 18th century.

 

After a brief French interlude Danzig again joined the Prussian Kingdom due to the Vienna Congress. Danzig's inhabitants fought for Germany in WWI. Only after Versailles was Danzig severed from Prussia.

 

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geschichte_der_Stadt_Danzig#Geschichte_vom_7._bis_13._Jahrhundert

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited 20 hours ago by Cameroni

[Bkk Brian]

On 9/17/2024 at 3:08 PM, Cameroni said:

 

Not true, Churchill was a murderer before WWII. 

 

"Winston Churchill, secretary of state for war and air, estimated that without the RAF, somewhere between 25,000 British and 80,000 Indian troops would be needed to control Iraq. Reliance on the airforce promised to cut these numbers to just 4,000 and 10,000. Churchill's confidence was soon repaid.

An uprising of more than 100,000 armed tribesmen against the British occupation swept through Iraq in the summer of 1920. In went the RAF. It flew missions totalling 4,008 hours, dropped 97 tons of bombs and fired 183,861 rounds for the loss of nine men killed, seven wounded and 11 aircraft destroyed behind rebel lines. The rebellion was thwarted, with nearly 9,000 Iraqis killed."

 

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/apr/19/iraq.arts

 

He pioneered carpet bombing in the middle East before exporting it to Europe.

 

Churchill also advocated for the use of mustard gas against the Ottoman troops.

 

 

He pioneered carpet bombing in the middle East before exporting it to Europe.

 

Not true, the award for pioneering carpet bombing goes to the Spanish Civil war in 1937, quickly followed by the Italians and Germans bombing Barcelona which was actually considered to be the very first carpet bombing of a city. That was then followed by the  Japanese bombing of China's wartime capital Chongqing.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carpet_bombing

 

So who was it again the that exported it to Europe?

[placeholder]

3 hours ago, Cameroni said:

 

I actually EXPLICITY said the British were not carpet bombing, but accidentally killed civilians in Wilhelmshaven. I mention Wilhelmshaven to illustrate that the British bombed Germany first, ie before Germany bombed Britain. 435 civilians did die in Wilhelmshaven due to British bombing raids.

 

 

From page 11:

In fact, the only bombings of Wilhelmshaven in 1939 were 2 abortive attacks. And the second one was specifically called off because of the danger it posed to civilians. After that, no more attacks until July, 1941

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Wilhelmshaven_in_World_War_II

Edited 17 hours ago by placeholder

[placeholder]

18 hours ago, Cameroni said:

 

As you very well know Guernica was a highly limited experimental operation. It was in no way a targeted, systematic carpet bombing campaign to which the Luftwaffe allocated all its resources, like the RAF did with bombing German civilians after May 1940.

 

Rotterdam was of course a mere pretext. It is a mendacious lie to suggest the British used Strategic bombing as retribution for Rotterdam, which was an accidental bombing of a butter factory anyway in the course of a major military operation.

 

The real reason why the British switched to bombing civilians was not Rotterdam, but rather the fact that the RAF suffered unsustainable losses in daylight raids on military targets. That coupled with Britain's inability to fight back with her army in any meaningful way.

 

The figures provided for the Rotterdam bombing are false, 814 civilians died in the Rotterdam bombing. The raid that caused these deaths was meant to be aborted, but a technical problem led to the raid going ahead despite the cancellation orders.

 

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombardierung_von_Rotterdam_1940

 

 

Whatever the accuracy of the casualty figures are for Rotterdam, the gist of your post is misleading nonsense. You don't explain why the mission was meant to be aborted and what that technical problem was. The mission was meant to be aborted because the Dutch had agreed to negotiate a surrender. But because of a glitch in communications not all the bombers were notified in time. Only some continued on. They didn't just bomb a butter factory. A butter factory? Really? They destroyed the entire old city of Rotterdam. And, of course, if the Dutch hadn't agreed to negotiate a surrender, the entire fleet of bombers dedicated to the task would have flown making the destruction much worse. In addition, the Germans threatened to do the same to Utrecht that they had done to Rotterdam if the Dutch didn't surrender. Here's a translation from the German Wikipedia entry:

"Between 800 and 900 Rotterdam citizens lost their lives. 24,978 homes, 24 churches, 2,320 shops, 775 warehouses and 62 schools were destroyed. An area of 2.6 square kilometers was razed to the ground within a few minutes. In addition to the medieval center, the eastern suburb of Kralingen was most affected.[5][6] The city then surrendered.

When, as a result of this attack, "the city of Utrecht was threatened with the same fate if its commander did not surrender immediately," the Dutch forces under General Henri Winkelman surrendered."

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombardierung_von_Rotterdam_1940

 

Looks like the kind of bombing that the Germans had practiced on Guernica.

 

And the reason that Britain resorted to area bombing was that it failed at precision bombing.

"In 1942 Bomber Command received a new aircraft – the Avro Lancaster – and a new leader – Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur Harris. Accepting that precision bombing was proving impossible, the War Cabinet sanctioned 'area bombing' – the targeting of whole cities to destroy both factories and their workers. It was judged necessary to defeat an enemy that seemed on the brink of victory. Harris believed it could win the war and gained much public support when he sent 1,000 bombers against Cologne."

https://duckduckgo.com/?sites=ihr.org&q=german+bombing+of+rotterdam&ia=web

 

[placeholder]

18 hours ago, Cameroni said:

 

A smart move on your part, because almost all the many many areas the Poles annexed after 1918 were historically German for centuries.

 

Danzig was originally a Viking settlement, Scandinavian and Prus made up the ethnic  origin of this original settlement. But it is true that these lands came under the dominion of a Polish King eventually in the 10th to 12th century. In the 13th century the Danes conquered Danzig. This led to the city coming under the laws of Luebeck, Germany.

 

Then the Brandenburger Konrad the 1st conquered Danzig. The the city fell to the Poles again however they fought with the Brandenburgers and then the Poles called the Deutsche Orden (!) to help them against the Brandenburgers. Because the Poles tried to stiff the Teutonic Order and failed to pay what they agreed to pay the Teutonic Knights occupied Danzig.

 

The Teutonic Knights and the Poles settled their dispute with a treaty at Kalish in 1343. There upon an era of 66 years of peace followed. That was when the Hanseatic alliance made Danzig into what it became.

 

After the Battle of Tannenberg when the Teutonic Order fell, the city of Danzig elected to rejoin Poland. However, with the peace of Thorn the Teutonic Knights again regained control of Danzig.

 

In 1440 Danzig joined the Prussian League. With the second peace of Thorn Danzig became part of the Kingdom of Prussia for some time. However, Poland was still involved in the administration which led to a dispute upon which Danzig elected to go against the Poles.

 

Danzig was the only city with a Polish population that did not join the Union of Lublin and when Stephan Bathory became King of Poland the city of Danzig refused to recognise him and instead declared for the emperor Maximilian II of Austria.

 

Danzig was then in its golden period but a war between Sweden and Poland led to its decline

 

Sweden occupied Danzig. It was not the Poles but the Danes and the Dutch which liberated Danzig.

 

In the conflict between Catholics and Lutherans Danzig was then occupied by the Russians and Saxons. Prussian then annexed Danzig in the 18th century.

 

After a brief French interlude Danzig again joined the Prussian Kingdom due to the Vienna Congress. Danzig's inhabitants fought for Germany in WWI. Only after Versailles was Danzig severed from Prussia.

 

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geschichte_der_Stadt_Danzig#Geschichte_vom_7._bis_13._Jahrhundert

I don't know what you think this proves. Here's a shorter entry about Silesia:

After World War I, Lower Silesia, having by far a German majority, remained with Germany while Upper Silesia, after a series of insurrections by the Polish inhabitants, was split. Part joined the Second Polish Republic and was administered as the Silesian Voivodeship. The Prussian Province of Silesia within Germany was divided into the Provinces of Lower Silesia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Silesia

 

A very ethnically mixed area.

 

 

Edited 1 hour ago by placeholder